Feeling the Heat: The Global Politics of Climate Change

Feeling the Heat: The Global Politics of Climate Change
America Abroad Media (PRI)
Hosts: Ray Suarez and Deborah Amos

The political climate has changed. Republican John McCain agrees with Democrat Barack Obama that the US must play a leading role in cooling down mother earth. But they don’t exactly agree on how to turn down the temperature. And the winner of the election will face stormy skies next year as the world tries to hammer out a successor to the contentious Kyoto accord. Developed and developing countries are facing off over how to create an environmentally and economically friendly way to clear the air. The negotiations threaten to be a carbon copy of the last standoff over who has to reign in their emissions. It’s not easy being green.

Segment 1- Ray Suarez explores the approaches of the two presidential candidates to the threat of climate change

Segment 2- Deborah Amos traces the history of the science and growing public awareness of climate change in the 20th century.

Segment 3- Ray Suarez looks back at the Clinton Administration’s role in the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol.

Segment 4- Deborah Amos takes us to New Delhi to examine the challenges faced by the developing world in adapting to a warming climate.

Guests in this program include:

Jason Grumet, Chair of the Obama campaign’s Environment and Energy Policy Committee

Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Senior Policy Advisor to the McCain campaign

Dr. Robert Stavins, Director of the Environmental Economics Program at Harvard University

Dr. William Antholis, Managing Director of the Brookings Institution.

Dr. Spencer Weart, Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics

Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, former Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs

Gene Sperling, National Economic Advisor to President Clinton

Congressman James Sensenbrenner, former Chairman of the House Science Committee

Ambassador Raul Estrada Oyuela, Chairman of the Kyoto Conference

Dr. Ashok Khosla, Chairman of the Development Alternatives Group

Anumita Roychowdhury, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Environment

Dr. Leena Srivastava, Executive Director of the Energy and Resource Institute

Nitin Desai, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs

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